While Adelaide United Coach Rini Coolen was delighted to finally give Reds fans a reason to smile against Melbourne Victory for the first time in 12 games, he was arguably more pleased with the way the Reds went about comprehensively dismantling their bogey side.
Few would have predicted a 4-1 drubbing in Adelaide United-s favour at AAMI Park yesterday considering Melbourne had won the teams- past 10 meetings. But Coolen and the Reds certainly believed a result of that nature was possible as they went into the match with a plan and executed it to near perfection.
A double to Sergio van Dijk, which made it seven in eight games for the Dutch striker, and goals from Marcos Flores and Fabian Barbiero did the damage on the scoreboard, but it was the Reds- committed and disciplined performance across the park, coupled with their ability to break Melbourne down and combat their strengths, that Coolen was most buoyed by.
“It-s a good result, a lot of goals in an away game, but I-m more happy with the way we did it…it was fantastic,” Coolen said.
“Knowing that we hadn-t beaten them for ten games, finally it has happened now and the way we did it, that has given us an extra fine feeling.”
“We knew everybody had to be perfect to play a game like this and you can-t guarantee that everything will go well before the game, but we spoke about it, we trained on it, we had confidence and we didn-t change a lot in our tactical decisions.”
“There were a few details on how we could stop them playing football and find areas where we could beat them, and that-s what we did well.”
The only downer for Coolen was the goal the Reds conceded in the final seconds of the match, which allowed the Victory to save some face. Coolen says it provided a reality check that the Reds still have a lot to work on and was a blunt reminder that they cannot become content with their efforts.
“There are still things to improve on like the last couple of minutes,” Coolen said.
“We had control of the game and we made a mistake, it wasn-t necessary to lose the ball, so there are always things we can do better.”
Other than being faced with the prospect ending the club-s poor run of results against the Victory heading into the match, the Reds also knew that another loss would seriously jeopardise their bid to hold down second spot.
Adelaide United sits four points ahead of the third placed Central Coast Mariners and eight clear of Gold Coast United, however both teams have three games in hand on the Reds.
“If we had of lost that game it would have been a problem for us to keep position number two, three or four, but we won it so it-s a nice challenge for the next couple of games to try and stay in the position we are now,” Coolen said.
“We don-t control everything because there are clubs under us who have played fewer games and they can go on top of us. What we have to do is play five games and try to win them all and if we do that everything is in our own hands.”
The run into the finals and the fight for an all important double chance is set to got down to the wire, with the Reds now enjoying a weekend break before their last five games, four of which are at home. It could be argued that not playing again until January 21, when they host North Queensland Fury at Hindmarsh Stadium, could threaten to stem the Reds- impressive form they showed against Melbourne, but Coolen is grateful for the weekend off so his charges will be fit and ready to fire for the club-s final crucial period of the regular season.
“To be honest I-m real happy with the break. The players have played a lot of games in the last weeks, it was heavy for them…but I-m real happy to have a break now, there-s a good feeling after a game like this, we can give them some days off and then we have to make them fresh for the last five games,” Coolen said.
“They will be tough games, but if we have everybody available and have the confidence that we showed yesterday, I-m really looking forward to these games.”
